Indecisiveness
by SoYouLikePuns
Summary: [Disclaimer] [This is an AU. There is divergence from canon] What if the SQUIP showed ill intent earlier in the story.
1. Don't Hurt My Jer

Jeremy's POV

**"It's called Optic Nerve Blocking. I have been blocking... Michael from your field of vision.",** Jeremy didn't have time to register what the SQUIP had said as Michael spoke up. "Jeremy... why are you standing there all... creepy and stuff?", After that the SQUIP continued. **"Michael is a link to Jeremy 1.0. To upgrade you have to be willing to make sacrifices. Besides...",** The SQUIP's form shifted and glitched. Jeremy stared as it morphed into a "new and improved" version of his best friend. It's posture was better and it had no glasses or freckles, it's hair was kept and it had no PacMan tattoo. It was not Michael. It moved to stand next to the real thing to compare itself. **"I can be the version of him you always wanted!",** It said in Michael's voice.

"What!?", Jeremy yelled, a bit louder than he should have. He tried to take a step back but tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground. No way! No way in hell would he ever want this! The SQUIP was inside his head, it should know that he loves Michael for who he is, flaws and all. Everybody in the hallway was staring at him but he didn't notice. He couldn't take his eyes off of the SQUIP Michael that was standing there, smiling, thinking it had done a good job. Jeremy didn't realize that someone was trying to talk to him until he felt himself being lifted off the floor. He hooked himself to whoever it was, trying to focus on that and not the voices in his head screaming upgrade upgrade upgrade. This person smelled like weed and body odor. No doubt about it, this was Michael.

Michael's POV

Michael didn't know exactly what was going on but he did know one thing right now, his buddy was freaking out and needed to be taken away from prying eyes. He got down on Jeremy's level and tried talking to him. "C'mon Jer... you gotta work with me.", The anxious teen tried to get his friends attention but to no avail. "Okay man, if you don't respond i'm gonna hav'ta carry you. So unless you want to be hassled by Rich even more than usual I suggest you answer me.", Jeremy continued to stare into space and Michael was starting to worry. He tried one more time before deciding to pick him up. "Like, a nod would be fine... anything?",

Other students were pulling out their phones now and Michael decided that it was a good time to bail. "Alright Jeremy... i'm picking you up now.", No response. Michael decided the easiest way to do this would be to hoist Jeremy up by his armpits and position him around his body koala style, that is if he could even get him off the ground. Jeremy was 180 something pounds and had a foot more height than Michael did, so... "Here goes...", He did it! Okay, the hard part was over. Finally after about 10 minutes of nothing, Jeremy actually did something in response to Michael and held on, which was a good thing because he was already hard enough to carry. He started speed walking to the front doors of the school. He needed to get them to his car.

Jeremy POV

They were outside the school. The voices seemed like they were finally done screaming at him. He didn't let go of Michael though. After what had just happened he was afraid that the SQUIP would block him out again. Jeremy started to think this SQUIP thing was a really bad idea. It wanted to pretend to be his best friend, worse though, it wanted him to leave his best friend. Jeremy had a thought, if the SQUIP hadn't done that... Hadn't _transformed_. Would he have listened to it? He would have. He wanted Christine but... the SQUIP I was trying to convince him that he needed to be popular to have her, that everything else was unimportant. _" 12 years",_ he thought. _" 12 years of friendship I almost threw away over a girl.",_

Jeremy felt the leather seat of Michael's car hit his back, then snapped back to reality. " What did I do?", Michael looked up at Jeremy halfway through buckling his own seat belt " Oh my God Jer are you back with us?", he let go of his seat belt and grabbed Jeremy's hand, which was sprawled out on the console. " What happened back there? I was so worried about you...", he _was_ worried. Jeremy could hear it in his voice. " Michael...", he had to tell him now. About the SQUIP, about what just happened. He had to get rid of it, he had to. Rich... He had to know how right? How to get rid of it? As soon as that thought had occurred it went away just as fast as Michael spoke up again, and even worse fear evident in his voice. " It worked, didn't it?",


	2. Yes Michael Listens To Taylor Swift

Jeremy blinked, sluggish. He was a bit panicky so it took him a minute to process what Michael had said. "Y-yeah..", he looked up at Michael and frowned. Michael stared at Jeremy, realization finally hitting him. Of course! He been acting shady since they left the mall! What happened in the hallway.. If the... What was it again? The SQUIP. If it was active was it hurting his player 2? Jeremy looked really scared back there.

"Dude..", he looks down at the steering wheel, the leather was tearing a bit. He'd have to fix it. " I'd say we gotta celebrate, but man...", his eyes seemed to stick to that tear. "What happened back there doesn't really seem worth celebrating.", Jeremy relaxed a bit. "Yeah..maybe not.", the taller boy felt a sharp zap in his back and jerked. Michael didn't notice. He only half heard what he'd said anyway. He wanted to tell Michael it would be okay but he wasn't even sure of that himself right now so he opted for the easier option.

Jeremy grabbed Michael's shoulder. Michael broke out of his sort of entranced state to look at his friend. Jeremy choked back the rest of his fear, he was safe with Michael. "...I can't think straight..", he lowered his hand back onto the console. " Can we go..? To your place? Please?", another zap. "Ngh!", it was much worse this time, all up and down his spine. Jeremy instinctively grabbed at his sides. Michael's expression quickly changed again and he leaned over to help Jeremy. "Jer! Are you ok?",

Damn it! This was ridiculous! Why was the SQUIP trying so hard to keep him away from his best friend. **"Because he is a loser, Jeremiah. He will only bring you down.",** The curly haired boy ignored the voice, looking back at Michael. "I'm fine. Just drive.", Michael reeled back into his seat and buckled up. "Alright..",

"I'll explain it later, ok Michah?", Jeremy took a deep breath and looked out the window of the P.T. Cruiser as it started. The radio flickered to life as Taylor Swift's "Love Story" began to play. _"Michael.. __You and your music..__",_ Jeremy thought about how cute it was that his hipster best friend, who loved classic rock and Bob Marley and vinyl… also owned three Taylor Swift CDs. It started up from halfway through the song.

"_So I sneak out to the garden to see you...",_

It filtered through the car speakers, quiet as Michael made his way out of the parking lot. He started tapping along and humming to the beat as the chorus played.

"_Romeo take me somewhere we can be alone I'll be waiting, all there's left to do is run",_

Jeremy stayed silent, listening to the song in tandem with Michael's humming. It was all he could ask for right now to be here, with his best friend, listening to Taylor Swift, in an outdated car. It was almost like everything was normal, like there wasn't a super computer in his brain telling him that this was wrong. That he needed to get out of the car right now! Go find Brooke and go to Pinkberry! Do you not want to be with Christine?

"_Romeo save me, they're try'n to tell me how to feel. This love is difficult, but it's real.",_

He thought about that. The whole reason he got this stupid thing was to get with Christine. Oh god...What the hell was he gonna do? **"Well, you could listen to me Jeremy.", **

"_I got tired of waitin'",_

"Not right now..", Jeremy mumbled to himself because he didn't want Michael to hear.

"_Wonderin' if you were ever comin' around",_

"**I am telling you. This is the right path.", **God, why was this so hard. These feelings made no sense. He didn't want to be an outcast, he didn't want to be…

"_My faith in you was...fadin'",_

"I said not right now", He felt his stomach churn and his face heat up. He didn't know what he wanted. He spent $300 on an abusive pill because he wanted a girl. **"Jeremy..", **He shut his eyes tight, still facing away from Michael. "Deactivate.",

"**Jeremy",**

"I said deactivate",

"**Jer-",**

"_Romeo save me, I've been feelin' so alone. I keep waitin' for you but you never come",_

"Just stop!", Jeremy slammed the side of his fist into the car window and gripped the side of his head with his other hand. The SQUIP did what it was told and deactivated. The tears flowed freely. Why did he do this? Why? This was such a bad idea. Why did he do this why did hedo this why di d he doo this whydidd he dothis whydidhedothis?

It was silent now as Michael drove. He shut the radio off. He had stopped humming, stopped tapping. He just...stopped. As soon as he found a place to park he did. It was at a public park. Well, you could call it that, it wasn't much. There was a swing set, a slide and a bench. All three of the fixtures seemed to be drowning in wood chips.

Jeremy hadn't stopped crying and Michael hadn't said anything. _"Oh god, he thinks I was yelling at him!",_ Michael stepped out of the car. _"He's gonna leave me here at this weird park.", _Jeremy's car door was opened. He was pulled outside (very gently but he didn't notice). _"Oh god this is it.", _Michael grabbed his hand and started dragging him over to a bench that was absolutely covered in wood chips. He sat Jeremy down, left hand placed gently over the crying boy's back. Jeremy was surprised, shouldn't he be mad?

Michael took off his hoodie and offered it to Jeremy. "Take this.", He reached out to grab it and noticed that his hands were shaking. Oh no. He was having a panic attack. That made a lot more sense. He took the hoodie tried to put it on, but it was futile. He decided to tie it around his shoulders instead. Michael waited for him to finish and then wrapped his arm around Jeremy. The philipino boy pulled his friend onto his shoulder, rubbing circles on his back and whispering reassurances to him.

Jeremy continued to cry, he was trying so hard to stop but that only seemed to make it worse. Michael didn't leave though, even though Jeremy yelled and cried. Michael was smart, he knew that Jer wasn't yelling at him. It would be ok. They would figure this out. He would wait for Jeremy to calm down, then they could go get stoned in his basement.


	3. The SQUIP doesn't like Jeremy (shocker!)

There were clouds forming in the sky, covering up the sun. An effective metaphor he supposed. Michael was destroying the perfect life he was building for Jeremy just by existing. In Jeremy's mind however, it was more like he was the clouds now. Covering up Jeremy's sun by changing integral details in the boy's life. But Jeremy himself didn't know what he wanted anymore, so really, the SQUIP was doing nothing wrong by pushing him in the 'right' direction.

He didn't really deactivate when he was told to. He just...hid himself, watching it all unfold from the sidelines. Jeremy was having a breakdown. Of course the SQUIP couldn't do anything about it, he wasn't programmed for that sort of thing. He also happened to be what triggered the incident, that didn't help things. This was what he wanted but it was also wasn't.

When Jeremy took Michael's hoodie it seemed to calm him down significantly. Of course it did, Michael was a secondary love interest after all. Jeremy didn't seem to be aware of this crush, which made the SQUIP's job much easier. He was able to block it out and manipulate it...until an hour ago. The probability that Jeremy would leave his best friend was not high. The decision had to be forced, unknowingly of course.

Jeremy did not know that he was being brainwashed into the decision until he had run into Michael. That's why the SQUIP did what he did, as a last ditch effort. It seemed to work out very differently than he thought it would. That thing in the car was another grasp at straws. He thought if he could get Jeremy to yell at him, Michael would think that he was the target of Jeremy's frustration. But again, it didn't work out. Now he was stuck here, staring at his pathetic host crying into the shoulder of their pathetic best friend. This was going to be a lot harder than he initially thought, especially now that Jeremy was suspicious.

He had only existed for a day and a half and he had already made several mistakes. He didn't ask for this, to have to deal with a confused teenager. But this is what he was created for, to make lives better. He would complete his task. He would unfortunately have to wait for Jeremy to calm down before he could step in and stop this nonsense. It seemed that would be difficult considering there was no stopping Jeremy from going home with Michael now. They were finally moving off of the dirty bench and back into the car. He thought he should enter sleep mode, he would handle this later.

/

They did eventually get to Michael's house, but contrary to Michael's suggestions, Jeremy said he wanted to nap instead of getting stoned. So Michael let him do his thing. Even though he wanted some answers...he could ask later. Jeremy did just have a total freak out and he also apparently had a robot in his brain now. A robot that was hurting him. Ugh...why did he let his player 2 take that pill. I mean, obviously he didn't know it was bad at the time. He had honestly thought it was fake.

"_Maybe there's something on google about this...", _He reached under his bed and grabbed his laptop. A beautiful thing, only because it had been adorned with video game stickers. He opened it and the screen flashed a few times before springing to life. The start-up screen gave him the typical 'Start windows normally?' spiel. He leaned up against the frame of his bed while that classic windows logo displayed itself on the screen. The home screen loaded up after a few seconds, proudly displaying a Super Smash Bros. Melee wallpaper among a messy desktop.

He wasted no time opening up the search engine in Chrome and typing in that ' P' that he needed to know about. Nothing came up. He tried 'squip pill' Still nothing. He scrolled down page after page looking for something, anything. Why wouldn't something like this be on the internet? Everything is on the internet! This only made Michael worry more. The more he thought about the worse it just seemed to add up. Some super advanced tech being sold to teens in the back of a Payless in New Jersey that will supposedly make you popular and there's nothing on the internet about it? Yeah, totally not some weird government experiment.

He thought about waking Jeremy up but...He looked up at him on the bed, sleeping like a rock. _"__He's been through some shit today...this can wait.", _Michael sat back down up against his bedframe and shut his laptop, sliding it back underneath his bed. While his hand was still underneath he pulled back out a small tupper wear bowl full of weed.


	4. Stairs Are Michael's Enemy

This was supposed to be bliss. Well, it would usually be bliss. Maybe if his best friend wasn't completely and utterly fucked it would be bliss. Maybe getting high wasn't a good decision after all. Whatever was supposed to be blissful was only numbing right now, keeping him from bursting out into tears over the fact that this was partly his fault.

He couldn't stop thinking about how if he had _just_ done a quick google search for a SQUIP beforehand, maybe he would have been cautious enough to stop Jeremy from buying it. From taking it. From believing in it. "Dammit...", Michael absolutely did not know what the hell to do. He and Jeremy had to figure this out together, but how were they gonna do that if Jeremy literally had a robot in his brain. "This is so _fucked_...",

He ran a hand through his hair. What was he gonna do? There wasn't anything he could do. Was his player two going to have to just...live like this..? Man, what a waste of money. "heh', Michael laughed at his little joke. It wasn't really all that funny. He laughed anyway, because what else could he do? And he kept laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Until the laughing turned into sobbing, and he couldn't hold it in anymore.

_"Shit.",_ Michael reluctantly got up off of the floor, realizing that if he stayed in this basement crying like this any longer, Jeremy would inevitably wake up and see him. Making his way to the staircase was an accomplishment, as he managed not to stumble and break something. He decided against looking back at Jeremy, sleeping on the bed, because it would only make him feel guiltier. As he slowly ascended the stairs he found it harder and harder to control his movements. Halfway up, Michael felt his knees give out. He collapsed right there on the stairs and continued to cry.

He knew that at this point there was no way he was getting back down or going further up. Luckily the staircase had a wall separating it from the rest of the basement, so he wouldn't fall off at least. _"Get it together, man.. You'll wake him up..",_ Michael laid his head down on the step above him and attempted to quiet himself. He still cried, but he made sure not to make any more noise. He'd forgotten how long it had been by the time he was able to move again, but he was so tired that he didn't try to go back down the stairs. He let his eyes flutter shut and waited until the darkness consumed his every thought. Everything floating far, far away, as he fell asleep.

**/**

**"Jeremy.",** It stood there, next to the bed, waiting. Jeremy wasn't moving. **"We are leaving Jeremy.",** It stated matter of factly. Jeremy buried his head into a pillow. This had gone on long enough, if they stayed any longer then the SQUIP would inevitably be deactivated. It had detected Mountain Dew Red in the vicinity as soon as it had come out of sleep mode.

"Are you gonna block him out again?", Jeremy said suddenly. The SQUIP answered immediately and honestly. **"Yes.",** It wouldn't matter if it lied. Jeremy wouldn't have believed it anyway. Michael couldn't stay around, not for this to work. If he did then there was an 84% chance that the SQUIP would be deactivated. He didn't do anything to help Jeremy's social standing either. There was only one way that the SQUIP could proceed now. It had to be aggressive and demanding. It was too late to build a false sense of trust or security, Jeremy knew that the SQUIP was dangerous. It had to use the _Michael Mode_ again. Jeremy would not want to see it and that's exactly what the SQUIP needed. The SQUIP once again took on the form of Michael, this time deciding to remove the pride patch on the left arm of the hoodie. It spoke again.

**"C'mon Jere.",** The voice was a tiny bit glitchy, but that seemed to work in the SQUIP's favor as Jeremy squished the pillow he was hugging closer to his face. **"We gotta go. If we stay here how are you ever gonna be with Christine.",** This seemed to be the breaking point. Jeremy sat up, visibly shaken. He stared at the SQUIP, taking it all in this time. It really _did_ look like Michael. "Oh god...", It wasn't him. God, the eyes... That was the worst part. Those piercing blue eyes just looked so _wrong_. He couldn't bear to look at it any longer and brought his hands to his face. "Don't make me leave.. Don't make me leave my friend..", Jeremy sat still with his head in his hands. The SQUIP kneeled down and reached a hand out to cup the teen's cheek. **"He won't want you here Jere.. Not after you tell him why you were so upset yesterday.",** It was a complete lie, but Jeremy bought it, just as predicted. This form was turning out to be quite useful. "N-no.",

The SQUIP slowly moved it's hand down to the boy's shoulder. **"If we leave...you'll be doing him a favor.",** Jeremy let his hands fall and looked back at the SQUIP. It let itself go back to it's default form. **"There is no way to get rid of me Jeremy.",** A blatant lie. **"And there will be no hope for your friendship with Michael after this morning.",** Another lie.

Jeremy's eyes went wide. It was all going according to plan. Things were finally getting back on track. The SQUIP looked into the boy's eyes with false sympathy and stood back up. **"Now let's go.",** Jeremy finally listened. With silent tears streaming down his face, he stood up and grabbed his backpack. He let the SQUIP lead him out of the basement. He saw Michael on the staircase and wondered for a brief moment why he was there, but immediately pushed the thought away when the SQUIP told him to keep moving. When they got out of the house the SQUIP took place directly in front of Jeremy. **"Now...Let's get you home so you can rest...",** It leaned down slightly, giving off a more menacing presence as it said **"Then we can get back to work.",**


End file.
